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Tertullian on Traditional Christian Practices related to Baptism and the Eucharist - Latin Text with English translation
from De Corona, 3.
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 And how long shall we draw the saw to and fro through 
    this line, when we have an ancient practice, which by anticipation has made 
    for us the state, i.e., of the question? If no passage of Scripture has 
    prescribed it, assuredly custom, which without doubt flowed from tradition, 
    has confirmed it. For how can anything come into use, if it has not first 
    been handed down? Even in pleading tradition, written authority, you say, 
    must be demanded. Let us inquire, therefore, whether tradition, unless it be 
    written, should not be admitted. Certainly we shall say that it ought not to 
    be admitted, if no cases of other practices which, without any written 
    instrument, we maintain on the ground of tradition alone, and the 
    countenance thereafter of custom, affords us any precedent. To deal with 
    this matter briefly, I shall begin with baptism. When we are going to enter 
    the water, but a little before, in the presence of the congregation and 
    under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the 
    devil, and his pomp, and his angels. Hereupon we are thrice immersed, making 
    a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the Gospel. Then 
    when we are taken up (as new-born children), we taste first of all a 
    mixture of milk and honey, and from that day we refrain from the daily bath 
    for a whole week. We take also, in congregations before daybreak, and from 
    the hand of none but the presidents, the sacrament of the Eucharist, which 
    the Lord both commanded to be eaten at meal-times, and enjoined to be taken 
    by all alike. As often as the anniversary comes round, we make offerings for 
the dead as birthday honours. We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the 
Lord’s day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to 
Whitsunday. We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be 
cast upon the ground. At every forward step and movement, at every going in and 
out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, 
when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily 
life, we trace upon the forehead the sign.  | 
    
  
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Tertullian
Baptism
Eucharist
On the Crown
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